Halló frá Ísland!

Kveðjur frá Ísland! Greetings from Iceland!

I’m hopefully safely ensconced in the world’s northernmost capital city. Since we’re out of the country for a week I’m going to be scheduling some blog posts for while our absence.

Today I start with a completely uncategorized list of things I learned about Iceland before setting out on this trip. All of this information can be gleaned from the Internet and a Discovery Channel documentary I watched on Youtube. Yeah, I’m made the most of my days last week.

Enjoy!

·      It is the most peaceful country in the world.

·      It is the first country to have an all-women political party.

·      The currency is the króna.

·      No standing army though a light coast guard and a crisis response unit.

·      The arctic fox is the only indigenous mammal though some polar bears come over via iceberg from Greenland.

·      Geothermal and hydropower provide most all of the electricity in Iceland.

·      The interior of the country is the harshest climate of the country and uninhabitable.

·      62.7% of the island is tundra.

·      It has the northernmost world capital.

·      The Icelandic language, because of the geographical isolation of the island, is the Scandinavian language closest to Old Norse {except for Faroese which is spoken in the Faroe Islands [look em up, they’re tiny and northern]}.

·      They have one of the lowest income inequality rates in the world.

·      Though I’m open to being immersed in new cultures, when it comes to food, I’m not quite as adventurous as I’d like to be. Thankfully I like seafood, of which they have much {obviously} but I think I might avoid eating "slátur" which is sheep innards minced together with blood and served in the sheep’s stomach. I also don’t mind lamb, which they serve a lot of, so I should be good.

·      One traditional and intense Icelandic food is "hákarl" which is putrid shark. It used to be made by burying the shark carcass under sand and rocks for several months {I think that the indigenous Americans in Alaska used to/still do something similar} and then dry-curing the meat in strips for several months afterwards. It’s served in cubes and often accompanied with "brennivín" which is an Icelandic aquavit {liqueur}. The hákarl is said to be very strongly flavored of ammonia and that many first-timers gag when they try it.

·      It appears as though tipping isn’t practiced.

·      It's the only country remaining where land owners retain the right to collect eider-duck down from nests on their property; it's the down that the mother ducks pluck from their chests to protect their nests and collecting it is often the task of children.

·      The plover's {a bird} song heralds spring.

·      It has the highest concentration of volcanoes in the world.

·      It has puffins!!! One of the largest puffin colonies in the world. Unusually for birds, they burrow in underground dens, mate for life, and may live in the same den for up to 30 years.

·      There's a lake in the north of the country that attracts more species of duck than anywhere in the world.

·      The Icelandic horse, a descendant of Mongolian horses, was introduced by the Vikings and remains genetically pure. They were once the best method of travel across the island. And they roam free during the summer months.

·      Glaciers!

·      It is the location of Europe's biggest desert; an area void of vegetation.

·      Youngest geological formation in the world.

·      The black sand at the beaches is actually the leftover ash from volcanoes.

We're so {so so} happy to be visiting this new culture AND celebrating the wedding of a pair of wonderful friends AND to be visiting/traveling with even more {& wonderful as well!} friends. We're a lucky couple of people and skál all around!

xoxo, natty ♥